The Solstice passed yesterday. Getting down to brass tacks its only about math. Earth is in the perihelion of its orbit and that's that. But I can't rid myself of a nagging sense its all wrong somehow. The calendar always seemed terribly off to me. We should be celebrating midsummer, not the beginning of the season. The method of measurement and division of them are just wrong. Now everything has summer written all over the place officially. So what? I can't help but think that today will be shorter than yesterday. Tomorrow shorter still. And so on. Until winter closes its grip once more. Such is essentially an irrational way to view things, because many a long day await this summer. And many a long year (hopefully). Yet still.
Along with roughly 14 thousand other people I attended the so called "Kupala Night" held on the banks of Warta yesterday. The main event was the simultaneous launch of over 6 thousand sky lanterns. To break some or other standing record, why else? It was a grand, awe-inspiring sight to behold.
I'm not even going to go into how Chinese Kuoming lanterns relate to Slavic tradition because that would be totally moot with the tendency to pick and choose any rites, beliefs, traditions, myths and stories one sees fit from anywhere in the world and combine them into a private amalgam. I mean, why restrain oneself to one pond when one can have the seven seas.
The point is, despite the throngs of people swarming the bridge and adjacent riverbanks a sense of alienation and displacement from everyone overcame me. There was of course a sense of unity. Everyone was united in participation. At some primal level however, I felt no such unity in experiencing. To that respect I found prior celebrations of this day, even last year, when I was coming back from such a get together with friends held at the campus on the east bank and saw a few solitary lanterns floating up the sky. What I felt was far more intense and signifying in some ineffable, spiritual sense, than the multitude of onlookers and lanterns yesterday. Such things should be experienced in solitude, or closely knit groups. Not in the bowels of the crowd-beast effectively desensitizing everything into banality and stripping away any semblance of magic, if there even is such a thing. Only to leave behind shat out crumpled lanterns, cigarette stubs and broken bottles littering the grassland on the banks. Such things simply can't be explained.
When it was over we decided to hoof it, as the chance of catching a tram home (stuck in the crowds pouring back into the city) was about as high as catching a ride on a flying saucer. Having stopped at some junkfood place we were soon joined by 3 of my past yearmates. Then came the confirmation. A flood of platitudes - fantastic, wonderful, phenomenal, magical, etc. Words are such crude tools indeed. Communication is not and never will be communion.
Along with roughly 14 thousand other people I attended the so called "Kupala Night" held on the banks of Warta yesterday. The main event was the simultaneous launch of over 6 thousand sky lanterns. To break some or other standing record, why else? It was a grand, awe-inspiring sight to behold.
I'm not even going to go into how Chinese Kuoming lanterns relate to Slavic tradition because that would be totally moot with the tendency to pick and choose any rites, beliefs, traditions, myths and stories one sees fit from anywhere in the world and combine them into a private amalgam. I mean, why restrain oneself to one pond when one can have the seven seas.
The point is, despite the throngs of people swarming the bridge and adjacent riverbanks a sense of alienation and displacement from everyone overcame me. There was of course a sense of unity. Everyone was united in participation. At some primal level however, I felt no such unity in experiencing. To that respect I found prior celebrations of this day, even last year, when I was coming back from such a get together with friends held at the campus on the east bank and saw a few solitary lanterns floating up the sky. What I felt was far more intense and signifying in some ineffable, spiritual sense, than the multitude of onlookers and lanterns yesterday. Such things should be experienced in solitude, or closely knit groups. Not in the bowels of the crowd-beast effectively desensitizing everything into banality and stripping away any semblance of magic, if there even is such a thing. Only to leave behind shat out crumpled lanterns, cigarette stubs and broken bottles littering the grassland on the banks. Such things simply can't be explained.
When it was over we decided to hoof it, as the chance of catching a tram home (stuck in the crowds pouring back into the city) was about as high as catching a ride on a flying saucer. Having stopped at some junkfood place we were soon joined by 3 of my past yearmates. Then came the confirmation. A flood of platitudes - fantastic, wonderful, phenomenal, magical, etc. Words are such crude tools indeed. Communication is not and never will be communion.
